-- SDL-Ball --
- A DX-Ball/MegaBall/Breakout clone for linux+friends (and windows)
with pretty graphics.
-- Index --
1.0 SDL-Ball Info and License
1.1 Objective
1.2 Controls and Keys
1.2.1 Keyboard Controls
1.2.2 Mouse Controls
1.2.3 WiiMote Controls
1.2.4 Joystick Controls
1.3 Saving and Loading
1.4 Configuration
1.4.1 Mouse
1.4.2 Keyboard
1.4.3 Digital Joystick
1.4.4 Analog Joystick
1.4.5 WiiMote
1.4.6 Config options explained
2.0 Compiling
2.1 Without sound
2.2 With WiiMote support
2.3 For system-wide installation
3.0 Themes
3.1 How to use a diffrent theme
3.2 How to make your own theme
4.0 Contributors and Credits
5.0 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
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1.0 SDL-Ball Info
Author: Jimmy Christensen
Project page: https://sourceforge.net/projects/sdl-ball/
Web site: http://sdl-ball.sourceforge.net/
License:
Code, Graphics, Levels, Sound are GPLv3
See themes/default/font/COPYING for font licenses.
SDL-Ball is my hobby project, I'm using it to learn C++ and
how not to design software, I learn by trial and error, thats
what makes it fun for me, so please, spare me the lessons.
If you want to clean it up, I'll gladly accept your patches.
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1.1 Objective
The objective of the game is to control the paddle in order to keep
the ball from falling down, by precise controlling you are able to
reflect the ball into bricks. Hitting bricks gives points and powerups.
Collecting powerups make the game easier or harder depending on the type.
Powerups gives you "coins" (you never now exactly how many coins you have),
and you can spend them on... Powerups :D
When all breakable bricks are destroyed, the level ends, and next level is on.
When all levels are completed, game start from level1 again, but with twice the score.
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1.2 Controls and keys
There are several ways to control the paddle, the preferred is using the mouse
but you can also use your keyboard, joystick or wiimote (wiimote, see 1.4.5 2.0 and 2.2)
1.2.1 Keyboard controls
w - Bring up wiimote connection dialog (only if compiled with wiiuse)
s - Take Screenshot (saves in ~/.config/sdl-ball/screenshots/)
u - Turn off screen clearing (gives some really cool/weird effects if background is turned off)
p - Pause
Pause -Pause
ESC - Pause and Show Menu
F1 - Show titlescreen
F11 - Toggle Fullscreen
c - Show/Hide clock (Shows what time it is)
v - Select Powerup (Next)
b - Buy selected Powerup
n - Select Powerup (Previous)
Arrow Up - Shoot/Launch ball
Arrow Left and Right - Move paddle left or right (See 1.4.2)
1.2.2 Mouse controls
Button1 - Shoot/Launch ball
Button2(Right Click) - Buy Powerup.
Mouse Down/Up - Select Powerup to buy.
X axis - Move Paddle
1.2.3 WiiMote controls
Button 1 - Buy Item.
Button 2 - Shoot/Launch ball
+ left and right - Select powerup to buy.
Tilt left or right to move paddle.
1.2.4 Joystick controls
Button1 - Shoot/Launch ball
Button2 - Buy powerup.
X axis - Move Paddle
Y axis - Selevt powerup to buy.
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1.3 Saving and Loading
To save your game, press ESC, and click the save-button in the menu
choose a slot and enter a name for the savegame,
then press enter to save.
Saving only saves the game as it is in the START of the level.
You can't save in level 1... Obviously, since you made no progress :)
To load a game, press ESC and click the load-button in the menu
then choose a game.
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1.4 Configuration
~/ means your home-directory.
The game saves its configuration in ~/.config/sdl-ball/settings.cfg
If you choose an unsupported resolution you can correct it in that file, see 1.4.6.
If you want to clear the highscores list, delete ~/.config/sdl-ball/highscores.txt
If you want to clear savegames, delete ~/.config/sdl-ball/savegame.sav
Edit this file with any text-editor to change options that are not reached from the menu.
1.4.1 Mouse
The mouse have no configuration options, you might want to adjust
your mousespeed from your window-manager.
1.4.2 Keyboard
Use the arrow keys to control the paddle, up to shoot and launch the ball.
You can change theese in the config file with the options:
leftkey, rightkey and shootkey however, you have to use SDLK numbers (see link in 1.4.6.)
You might want to tweak controlmaxspeed, controlaccel and controlstartspeed,
which are also explained in 1.2.6.
1.4.3 Digital Joystick
A digital joystick is a stick connected to 4 buttons, therefore it provides
very poor control, ie. its either ON or OFF, therefore, if you use such a joystick
be sure to choose "Digital Joystick" in the joystick options menu. You can tweak
tweak controlmaxspeed, controlaccel and controlstartspeed. (explained in 1.4.6.)
1.4.4 Analog Joystick
A analog joystick provides accurate control, if you use a analog joystick you
need to choose "Analog Joystick" in the joystick options menu, then make sure
the stick is centered, press "Callibrate", push joystick button shortly,then
push the stick left, press button shortly, and finally push the stick right and press
button shortly.
You can tweak controlmaxspeed (explained in 1.4.6.) it acts as sensitivity.
Callibration values are saved to config so you won't need to callibrate again.
1.4.5 WiiMote
You need to compile sdl-ball with support for libwiiuse, read more about this under 2.2.
You need to connect the wiimote every time you start the game.
To connect the wiimote simply press "w" then press 1 and 2 on the WiiMote.
You can run sdl-ball from a terminal to see some debugging message from libwiiuse.
You can tweak controlmaxspeed (explained in 1.4.6) it acts as sensitivity.
1.4.6 Config options explained
clearscreen [0/1] - clears the scene before drawing (looks pretty funny if you dont)
eyecandy [0/1] - turns on nice particle effects and trails, saves a few cpu cycles to turn it off
resx - horizontal resolution
resy - vertical resolution
showbg [0/1] - show the background image
fullscreen [0/1] - use full-screen mode
particlecollide [0/1] - use collision detection for particles, looks nice but might a cpu hog
sound [0/1] - use sound effects (sound effects will allways be loaded) (requires compiled with sound support)
stereo [0/1] - use stereo, some people don't like stereo, might save a few cpu cycles to turn it off
controlmaxspeed - the max speed the paddle can travel with when using non-mouse controllers.
10 is VERY fast, this acts as sensitivity for WiiMote and analog joystick.
controlaccel - the acceleration that the paddle gains when using digital joystick or keyboard for controlling.
controlstartspeed - the starting speed (the "lowest" speed) of the paddle when using digital joystick or keyboard.
rightkey - SDLK number of the key that makes the paddle travel right
leftkey - same as above, but left.
nextkey - Select next powerup.
buykey - Buy selected powerup.
prevkey - Select previous powerup.
shootkey - the key that makes the guns shoot and releases the ball.
Check this site for sdl key numbers: http://kobesearch.cpan.org/htdocs/SDL_Perl/SDL/Constants.pm.html#SDLK_0-
joyisdigital [0/1] - if this is 1, the joystick acts as a "dump"/digital joystick (behaving excatly like the keyboard)
if this is 0, the joystick acts as a analog/precise joystick.
joycal* - callibration values from the joystick callibration process.
joyenabled [1/0] - if 1 then joystick is enabled (set to 0 if you experience random movement/controlling error)
sndtheme - Case sensetive name of the sound-theme dir to use.
gfxtheme - Case sensetive name of the gfx-theme dir to use.
lvltheme - Case sensetive name of the level-theme dir to use.
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2.0 Compiling
The basic requirements for compiling sdl-ball is the following libs AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT FILES:
OpenGL
LibGLU
SDL1.2
SDL-image1.2
SDL-ttf1.2
SDL-mixer1.2
Make, a working C++ compiler and stdlibc++6
To compile, extract the SDL-Ball tarball (since you're reading this I figure you allready did) and cd into the dir.
Type make and press enter.
If you get errors: error: SDL.h: No such file or directory
And you're SURE you have dev libs installed, add -I/usr/include/SDL to CFLAGS in Makefile
2.1 Without sound
If you don't have a soundcard/have a very weak computer/don't have SDL-mixer you can compile without sound support.
This removes SDL-mixer dependancy.
To turn off sound support, you need to edit two files:
Makefile: remove -lSDL_mixer
main.cpp: remove #define WITH_SOUND
2.2 With WiiMote support
To enable WiiMote support you need to have a working installation of
libwiiuse ( http://www.wiiuse.net/ ) I won't get into installing that.
You also need a working blue-tooth dongle w/driver and all, if you can't run the
example-program from wiiuse, you need to fix those problems before trying to compile sdl-ball.
You need to have a systemwide install of wiiuse ( sudo make install in the wiiuse dir ).
You need to edito two files to enable WiiMote support:
Makefile: add -lwiiuse to LDFLAGS
main.cpp: remove the // in front of #define WITH_WIIUSE
2.3 For systemwide installation Because every linux dist is diffrent,
I can't know where it would be nice to put the datafiles (themes) for sdl-ball,
you might want to use a dir like /usr/local/share/sdl-ball
In that case, make a directory there, and put
the themes dir into it. Then compile with
make -DDATADIR="/usr/share/sdl-ball/themes"
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3.0 Themes
Themes can, but don't have to, consist of several things, in SDL-Ball a theme can contain:
levels - other levelsets are always nice.
graphics - all the graphics in sdl-ball can be changed by the theme.
sounds - you can customise sounds aswell.
Themes can be stored in 2 diffrent places: Either in ~/.config/sdl-ball/themes/
or in sdl-balls own sdl-ball/themes folder.
3.1 How to use a diffrent theme
You can choose a theme from the options menu.
You can mix sound, gfx and level thems in the settings file (see 1.4 and 1.4.6)
3.2 How to make your own theme
http://sdl-ball.sourceforge.net/?page=themes for more information on themes, it's really easy! ;)
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4.0 Contributors and Credits
People who have directly helped the SDL-Ball project, chronologically:
Quinton "quin" Reeves - Windows Port.
Ciddk - Website and Bugreports
Evgeni Golov - Suggestions, comments, insight, Debian package
"Dionos" - The dio-sound-theme.
yugrotavele - The AUR package
kfgz - Patching
Yannickescu - AROS port
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5.0 Frequently Asked Questions
Q: The paddle moves around randomly, or is stuck in one of the sides?
A: try disabling joystick support in the settings.cfg